A teenager teams up with the daughter of young adult horror author R. L. Stine after the writer’s imaginary demons are set free on the town of Madison, Delaware.

Starring  Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush

Directed by Rob Letterman

Remember when you where 12 and you couldn’t wait to get your little dirty kid fingers on the next Goosebumps book? I do! Flashing forward 15/20 years later things have definitely changed, one of them being my sense of entertainment. When it comes to kid’s movies/entertainment there seems to be an element there for adults that goes over the heads of children that we find enjoyment in. Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding this with Goosebumps. I think this one focused heavily on it’s target audience of pre-teen to young adults; full of cheese and flimsy action.

I feel this one could have achieved greatness in the eyes of family entertainment as those have in the past, but it just didn’t. A great example that comes to mind is Super 8. I was extremely impressed with Super 8 as it captured it’s audience through fun action and a great script minus the cheese. My big problem with Goosebumps is all the cheesy dialogue and teenage antics that made it sort of a cringe-fest for me. Even at a young age I didn’t really enjoy this style (think teen Disney Channel days). Regardless, I pushed my way through with the promise in mind that I’d enjoy the elements of the books that I loved so much in the past. Unfortunately, I was not rewarded for sticking it out. It had honestly been so long since I read the books that it didn’t really mean as much to me as it should have.

It was also silly of me to think that Jack Black would be the saving grace of a corny production. He was not. His characterization was not bad, it just wasn’t that great. I can’t put the responsibility on his shoulders alone, this was a team effort. None of the acting/characterization was terrible, it just felt lacking. As I say time and time again, your acting can only be so good when you are given a crap script. That might have been the case here.

In terms of this being a pre-teen/teen production, there are some stigmas that bother me, the biggest one being the notion that people just fall in love/lust immediately. This theme is as old as dust and often put on repeat, especially in teen productions. Why you ask? Not sure here… Seems like a bad idea being that teens are naturally hormone driven. This wasn’t a main theme in the show, but a re-occurring notion.

Overall, if you want something as a random chaos explosion minus the teen cheese, go watch Cabin in the Woods, Jumanji, This is the End, or even Super 8.